Books in the Cambridge Companions to Music series

From Please Please Me to Abbey Road, this collection tells the fascinating story of the Beatles - their individual backgrounds, their major works, and their enduring musical legacy. Providing detailed biographical and album analyses, the book is ideal for courses and is also a must-read for all dedicated Beatles fans.

This Companion offers insights into Debussy's character, his environment and his music, especially the roles of nature and eroticism in his music. His works are discussed through the themes of sonority, rhythm, tonality and form, with closing chapters on performance and reception at the start of the new century.

This Companion provides comprehensive coverage of the concerto - a genre rarely considered in its entirety - and includes examinations of compositional contexts, important works and performance-related topics. It will appeal to scholars, students, performers and music lovers alike.

An introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn with chapters on Haydn and his contemporaries, reception, keyboard performance practices, and posthumous reputation. Essays also focus on recorded performances, revivals of his operas, the major genres in which Haydn wrote and the lesser known operas.

This 2004 Companion provides a biographical, theatrical and social-cultural background for Verdi's music, examines in detail important general aspects of its style and method of composing, and synthesizes stylistic themes in discussions of representative works.

This Companion provides an overview of the composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896). Sixteen essays by leading experts provide an introduction to Bruckner's life and works in all genres and introduce the lay reader to issues that have concerned scholars over the past twenty years.

This Companion will enrich readers' understanding of the history of the genre, the context and significance of quartets as cultural phenomena, and the musical, technical and interpretative problems of chamber music performance. It will also enhance their experience of listening to quartets in live performances and on recordings.

This Companion explores the extraordinary diversity of opera in the twentieth century. The volume includes essays devoted to individual composers, from Debussy to John Adams, avant-garde music theatre, operettas and musicals, and filmed opera, and ends with a provocative discussion of the position of the genre in today's cultural marketplace.

This Companion provides a broad overview of the world of pop and rock. It introduces the most important and significant moments in its history and the key issues involved in understanding popular culture's most vital art form.

This 2004 Companion contains specially commissioned essays on one of the most influential opera composers. Divided into four parts, each exploring an element of Rossini's life, his world, and his works: biography and reception; words and music; representative operas; performance. Chapters also on individual works: Tancredi, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Semiramide, and Guillaume Tell.

This Companion contains essays by eminent scholars on Berlioz's place in nineteenth-century French cultural life, on his principal compositions, on his major prose writings, on his direct and indirect encounters with other famous musicians, and on his legacy in France. The volume also provides a detailed chronology of Berlioz's life.

This Companion explores the extraordinary diversity of opera in the twentieth century. The volume includes essays devoted to individual composers, from Debussy to John Adams, avant-garde music theatre, operettas and musicals, and filmed opera, and ends with a provocative discussion of the position of the genre in today's cultural marketplace.

This Companion traces the evolution of ballet as a theatrical art from the fifteenth to the end of the twentieth century. An international team of writers discuss important and interesting aspects of a much beloved art form that has many friends but few historical reference books.

An accessible introduction to Schumann: his time, temperament, style and his oeuvre. Explores the cultural context, musical and poetic fabric, sources of inspiration of key works from his lieder and piano pieces to chamber, orchestral and dramatic works. Contains tables and illustrations, a glossary and advice on further reading.

This collection of fourteen essays, authored by leading scholars in the field, surveys the life, work, and posthumous reception of nineteenth-century German-Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn. While engaging with the most up-to-date scholarly literature, each chapter also provides sufficient background information to provide an introduction to Mendelssohn for the virtual newcomer.

This Companion provides an accessible and vivid introduction to the life and music of Finland's greatest composer, Jean Sibelius. Placed in a wide perspective and considering the works themselves, their performance, reception and influence, Sibelius emerges as one of the most striking and individual figures in twentieth-century music.

This 2004 Companion contains specially commissioned essays on one of the most influential opera composers. Divided into four parts, each exploring an element of Rossini's life, his world, and his works: biography and reception; words and music; representative operas; performance. Chapters also on individual works: Tancredi, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Semiramide, and Guillaume Tell.

This is the first book to encompass the breadth and depth of guitar performance, featuring essays which cover different guitar traditions and styles, from baroque, classical, country, blues, and rock to flamenco, African and Celtic, written by some of the most influential players, teachers, and guitar historians in the world.

Written for a general readership by some of the leading specialists in the field, this Companion presents up-to-date scholarship in an accessible fashion. It provides an authoritative overview of Liszt's music, its context and performance practice in a way that will be invaluable to music professionals and amateurs alike.

This 1999 volume contains sixteen specially commissioned essays on the saxophone, and its history and technical development from Adolphe Sax to the end of the twentieth century. Includes accounts of the instrument's history in jazz, rock and classical music. Contributors are some of the finest performers and experts on the saxophone.

Bringing the most recent scholarship into the public arena, this volume bridges the gap between scholarly and popular images of Mozart. It provides comprehensive coverage of all his important works, the reception of his music since his death, the contexts which inform his work and his significance as a performer.

An accessible introduction to the life and music of Edward Elgar, suitable for a wide readership, including performers, general readers, and students, as well as scholars. Divided into three sections, the Companion explores Elgar's early career, major musical achievements, and the reception, performance and interpretation of his work.

Written by many working conductors, this book considers all facets of musical conducting. It includes practical advice on how to conduct different groups (choral, opera, symphony, early music) and a history of conducting presented as a study of national traditions.

This Companion will enrich readers' understanding of the history of the genre, the context and significance of quartets as cultural phenomena, and the musical, technical and interpretative problems of chamber music performance. It will also enhance their experience of listening to quartets in live performances and on recordings.

Ranging from medieval music to Madonna and beyond, this book covers in detail the many aspects of the voice. Almost anything one wants to know about singing practices and singing styles can be found here in nineteen chapters written by leading performers and specialists.

This Companion provides an accessible and vivid introduction to the life and music of Finland's greatest composer, Jean Sibelius. Placed in a wide perspective and considering the works themselves, their performance, reception and influence, Sibelius emerges as one of the most striking and individual figures in twentieth-century music.

Alban Berg's achievement is based on an extraordinarily small musical output, but it includes towering masterpieces such as the operas Wozzeck and Lulu, and his last work, the Violin Concerto. These and all Berg's other substantial works are discussed in this wide-ranging Companion.

This Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to the life, music and compositional aesthetic of French composer Maurice Ravel. Leading scholars offer a powerful reassessment of this most private and elusive musician, examining his work in detail within its cultural context. The volume marks the 125th anniversary of Ravel's birth.

This is an accessible guide to Bartok and his music. Wide-ranging in coverage, it sets out the cultural and political background in Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century, considers Bartok's research into folk music, surveys his compositional output in all genres and the varied responses to his work.

This is a compact and authoritative survey of the cello. It deals with the history and construction of the cello and bow, discusses the careers of the most distinguished cellists through history, surveys the repertory and reviews teaching methods, technical developments and issues of performance practice.